


Dark Paradise

by PhoenixSong13



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Pining, Surprise But No Surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 18:26:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixSong13/pseuds/PhoenixSong13
Summary: After losing the two people he cares about most, John Watson is feeling more than a little morose





	Dark Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the formatting. This was taken from my DeviantArt account

Dark Paradise  
+A Sherlock Holmes fan fiction. Song is Dark Paradise by Lana Del Rey. I do not own either.+

 

"All my friends tell me I should move on  
I'm lying in the ocean singing your song  
Ah~  
That's how you sang it..."

Three years had passed since the death of my dearest friend Sherlock Holmes. Only six months had passed since the death of my beloved wife Mary. I felt lost in the world, cheated out of the two people who meant everything to me.  
My practice had suffered greatly from both blows. I had begun to recover from Holmes' death just as Mary fell ill. I had worked very hard to help her, spent many sleepless nights at her bedside. However, in the end it was all for naught. Mary passed away in my arms on a bitter Autumn night.  
I had become listless and depressed, unable to help my patients as I was unable to help myself. I found myself wandering the streets of London most of the time, visiting Mrs. Hudson at 221B Baker Street as an excuse to be close to Holmes' belongings. I often sat in his chair by the fireplace and hummed several tunes he used to play on his Stradivarius, which sat by the chair, a forsaken relic of another, happier life.  
At night, I would lay in the bed I had shared with Mary, staring at the ceiling. My mind would flash between memories of her and him and I could scarcely breathe for the pain within. Losing them both so close together was absolutely devastating.  
For I had loved him as much as I had loved her in the very same way. I had loved him as more than a friend and I had never had a chance to tell him.

"Loving you forever can't be wrong  
Even though you're not here, won't move on  
Ah~  
That's how we played it..."

Many of my friends attempted to console me, but to no avail. Mrs. Hudson seemed to be the only one who understood, visiting me every day and making sure I was eating properly. Her brand of consolation did not consist of empty words of kindness or sympathy. It involved freshly-baked cranberry scones, strong, hot tea, and someone to whom I could confide in. She kept me sane for a very long time.  
In an attempt to keep Holmes alive in my mind, I began to take an interest in many of the murder cases that appeared in the circulars. I would use the information from the papers, along with a bit of snooping around the scenes. I applied the lessons that Holmes had taught me to my investigations and more or less came to the same conclusions that would become official in the papers. I never came to anything phenomenal or anything all that fantastic and I felt that I was as big a disappointment as Holmes had always said. This did not help my mental state at all and my interest went from active to passive.  
There were several nights where I held my military service revolver in my hands, fully loaded, contemplating a quick death. I could never find it in myself to pull the trigger, however. Was I afraid to die? No. I did not fear death. When I had fought in Afghanistan, I knew that I could die at any given moment. It really did not scare me any. What I did fear, however, was what Holmes might think if he knew I had taken my own life. And what would Mary think? I was at a crossroads with compass to guide me forward.

"And there's no remedy for memory  
Your face is like a melody  
It won't leave my head  
Your soul is haunting me and telling me  
That everything is fine  
But I wish I was dead..."

I began to drink heavily, though kept away from recreational drug use. Drowning my sorrows was far more preferable to me than to temporarily forget them with a substance that could eventually kill me. As a doctor, I know alcohol could do the same, but it is still more preferable to me.  
At night, sleep brought me little relief, for I dreamed of them each night though, mercifully, never simultaneously. One night I would dream of him, forbidden images in my sleep that never saw realization in the waking world. The next night, I would dream of her with her gentle heart and loving smile. The dreams were always so real, so vivid. Waking from them was a personal torture that I went through each morning.  
The thought of an everlasting darkness appealed to me and teased me. I would close my eyes and revel in the blackness that greeted me. Even I know my mental state was in a very bad state, but there was little I could do...or wanted to do.

"Every time I close my eyes  
It's like a dark paradise  
No one compares to you  
I'm scared that you  
Won't be waiting on the other side  
Every time I close my eyes  
It's like a dark paradise  
No one compares to you  
I'm scared that you  
Won't be waiting on the other side..."

It scared me to some degree to think that Holmes and Mary might not be in the next world with me. What if they had already moved on? What if they had never made it to where I was? An eternity without either of them would be absolute torture, no matter which world I was in. That may have been a key factor which kept me from harming myself.  
One good friend of mine, Dr. Stanley Hoffstedter, had noticed the decline in my personal and professional care. He took the liberty of calling me in for a consultation and regarded me with much concern at the conclusion of it.  
"John, you were not well. You have lost three stone* since last I saw you and you are showing signs of excessive alcoholism. In speaking to you, I am concerned deeply. All you can speak of is Sherlock Holmes and Mary. This has become an unhealthy obsession," he told me, clasping his hands together on the desk. "John, Elisabet Hudson came to see me about you."  
Inwardly, I felt cold. I opened up to Mrs. Hudson more than to anyone else. I had confessed my suicidal thoughts to her and the very black inclinations that had crossed my mind. If Hoffstedter had spoken to her, he most likely knew everything.  
"Stanley..." I started.  
"No. Listen to me, John. You must let them go or you will drive yourself into an early grave. Mrs. Hudson told me that you have been having some thoughts that cause me great worry. She told me you have been thinking of ending your life."  
I looked down at my hands, where I held Mary's handkerchief. I had Holmes' cherrywood pipe in my coat pocket and I felt it against my thigh. Both items gave me strength.   
"And what if I have, Stanley? What if my life means nothing to me now that they're both gone? I have nothing without them," I said succinctly, feeling nothing as I spoke. I could find no shame in myself or any real sense of sorrow for upsetting him, for I knew I had.  
"You have your FRIENDS, John! We still care about you! I never want to find out you've killed yourself! You need to move on. Go to a club, meet some people. Meet some women! You cannot let your life end because your wife died!" Stanley said, a vehemence in his voice that did not reach me.  
"It's not only her, Stanley. It's him too. No one understands that I love him just as much as I love Mary. The loss of him devastated me. Mary was healing me and then she died." A touch of heat reached me at last and I exclaimed, "Tell me how YOU would react if you had lost the two great loves of your life so close together!"  
I had leaped to my feet, the first emotion I had felt in months registering in my soul. I felt warmth spread through me as anger flashed across my soul.  
Hoffstedter started at me, his eyes wide. I expect he had never thought he would hear me profess my love for another man. To be honest, I had never expected to profess it. But a lack of social grace, which had crept upon me in the previous months, had me saying things I might never have done before.  
"You...loved him? You loved him romantically?" I nodded, my face challenging the tone in his voice. "You're a homosexual?"  
My eyes narrowed as he tried to force this label on me. "I loved my wife, Stanley. That was no lie. I happened to love Sherlock Holmes as well and he just happens to be male. I never expected to love him as I do. Do you have a problem with that?"  
He looked highly uncomfortable and I felt I had my answer. He did have a problem with how I felt for Holmes and I knew before he ever said what he said next that it had to do with religion, his raising as a Christian.  
"John, the bible forbids--"  
"Oh, damn you and your bible! It is a book that was written by man filled with fables and tall-tales to keep people in line! Why should God create homosexuality if he hates it so?! Why should he give us the ability to love those of the same gender? This is why Holmes was a man of science and not theology. Theologists never think logically, simply theoretically! You sit in church, spoon-fed stories and warnings that you cannot definitively prove came from God by men who have done the same. Well, Stanley, think what you like, but I have only one thing to say. If I am going to Hell, I would much rather be there than to be in a Heaven with a God filled with such hate." I grabbed up my hate, irate and agitated as I had no been before.  
Stanley looked positively stricken by my words, though it might have also been the fact that I had never show a distaste for religion in the past. I had been raised Christian, alongside my friends and had never questioned anything before. After meeting Holmes and feeling my own emotions change for him, I had begun to understand the errors in my religious upbringing. Certainly, I believed in God, but not because of what the bible said. I believed in a gracious and loving God, a Father to us all.  
When Hoffstedter spoke, his voice was clipped and pious, an indication that he thought of me quite lowly at the moment. "He poisoned your mind against the teachings of the Church, John. He was an eccentric man with strange tastes and the Devil's genius. I never said anything when he was alive out of respect for you, but I've held my silence too long it would seem. It is the belief of many who met Sherlock Holmes that he was possessed by some demon that gave him the mania he suffered from and the tastes for the bizarre that he frequently entertained!" His eyes burned with the fervor of the righteous and I was surprised that I had never seen this side of him before.  
When I spoke, it was with a controlled fury. "He was many things and certainly not perfect, but he was not possessed by any demon or devil. He was a cocaine and morphine addict, he would not sleep or eat for days. That's what created the mania. His genius was his curse, no gift from the Devil! He saw the things that most people could not. His mind never stopped, it was in constant motion. He worked towards the betterment of society and did more for London that Scotland Yard ever thought of. He put the worst of the world's criminals to justice and gave his life to wipe out James Moriarty! No one understood him, not at all. I was the only one who came close. He was a genius trying to cope with a mind that never stopped, a misunderstood human being who deserved so much more than was ever afforded him." I turned away. "Good day, Dr. Hoffstedter. I think we shall not be seeing each other again."  
He called to me as I left, but I refused to turn back. My mind was racing, my heart pounding. It had been a long time since this emotion had struck me and I felt my love for Holmes increase ten-fold.  
Only I had ever come close to understanding the person he was, the reason he was the way he was. Most people thought that he was mad or (as it would seem) possessed by something evil that gave him his extraordinary genius. But it was that same mind that made him as he was. He had rarely slept because his mind would not rest. He used substances to enhance his thinking processes and it had done strange things to him.  
I realized I was home and had no recollection of getting there. My mind had been so full of Holmes that I had been moving automatically, on an instinct.  
I went inside my house, hanging up my coat and hat in the foyer. I felt exhausted and my mind felt overworked. All I really wanted to do was climb into bed and hide away from the world, but it seemed that my brain would not allow that.  
I sat in my chair by the fireplace, my head in my hands. My thoughts were so full of Holmes that I was feeling overwhelmed. I could remember his scent, the touch of his fingers against my skin, almost as if it were yesterday. He always had a faintly astringent scent about him from the chemicals he worked with, the smell of tobacco almost obliterating it. Almost, but never fully.  
He had had dark hair with gentle waves and dark brown eyes, full of a pain that he had only known. They would light up when he was on the trail of a suspect and dim when something had not gone according to his expectations. His smile could be infectious and his laugh always had a nervous quality to it. There were many times he would press up to me when we were hiding and I could remember the flat of his chest against mine. He forgot to shave regularly and I could remember the feeling of stubble against my neck when he would whisper in my ear.  
I groaned as I thought of these sensations. It made me positively ache for him. But I never touched myself or relieved myself of the desire that would streak through me. I had never touched him when he was alive, I would not use him as fodder for release when he was dead. It was not fair or right in any way.  
I sat back in the chair, my eyes closed and my hands limp in my lap. Gladstone, my bulldog, nudged at my foot and I looked down at him.  
"You miss him too, don't you, boy?" I asked softly.  
He nudged my foot again and I knew that meant yes. Even though Holmes had damn near killed him several times, Gladstone had grown used to the attention. When Holmes had died, Mary had paid him the much needed positive attention. Now she was gone too and I knew I was not a very good master to him.  
I reached down and petting his head and ears. "I miss them too."

"All my friends ask me why I stay strong  
Tell 'em when you find true love it lives on  
Ah~  
That's why I stay here

And there's no remedy for memory  
Your face is like a melody  
It won't leave my head  
Your soul is haunting me and telling me  
That everything is fine  
But I wish I was dead..."

That day...well, I shall never forget it. I had been mildly interested in a case that was an ongoing investigation with Scotland Yard and had been doing some poking about the scene. There was nothing new I could glean from my surroundings and I felt at a loss. My thoughts turned to Holmes yet again.  
He could have found something easily in the scene before me. His skills of observation knew no rival, save for perhaps his elder brother Mycroft. I knew my mind hand nothing on his prowess.   
In my thoughts, I had forgotten to watch my footing and ran headlong into a wizened, elderly man carrying several books. I knocked him and his books to the ground, eliciting a cry from him.  
I felt horrible immediately and stooped to pick up the books hurriedly. I lent a hand to the man, but he roughly brushed aside my help, tottering to his feet.  
"I am terribly sorry, my dear man. I was occupied and was not watching my footing," I murmured apologetically.  
He snarled, snatching back his books as they were his children. He turned away, growling out, "Damn young people, no regard for their elders, I'm sure...!" He stumbled his way up the street, still grumbling under his breath.  
I sighed and made my way towards Hyde Park, thinking about Holmes and Mary, the added guilt of knocking the old man over eating at me. I sat on a bench, leaning back and letting the gentle afternoon breeze play over me.  
Darkness enveloped me as I closed my eyes and I found a sweet moment of solitude and peace. It seemed that my only peace of mind came when I closed my eyes. It was a dark paradise of my own creation and I reveled in it. Death could only give me an eternity of such peace, of that I was certain.

"Every time I close my eyes  
It's like a dark paradise  
No one compares to you  
I'm scared hat you won't be waiting on the other side  
Every time I close my eyes  
It's like a dark paradise  
No one compares to you  
But there's no you  
Except in my dreams tonight

Oh-oh-oh-oh, ah-ha-ha-ha  
I don't want to wake up from this tonight  
Oh-oh-oh-oh, ah-ha-ha-ha  
I don't want to wake up from this tonight..."

A gentle hand touched my shoulder and I opened my eyes. The kind face of Constable Clark, or Clarkie as Holmes and I called him, looked down at me and he gave me a small smile.   
"I thought you might be asleep for how peaceful you looked, Doctor. I'm terribly sorry for disturbing you," said he apologetically.  
I smiled back and stood, fixing my waistcoat and picking up my coat from the bench. I patted him on the arm.  
"It's quite all right, Clarkie. I might have indeed dozed off if you had not come by and I should not like to do that. I'll be heading home now. It was good to see you, Clarkie," I replied, shaking his hand.  
Concern flitted through his eyes as he replied, "It was good to see you as well, sir. Perhaps you could come by sometime next week for tea with me and the missus."  
"Yes, that would be nice. I'll let you know when I'm available and we'll see if it works. Good day, Clarkie."  
I turned and left the constable standing there with no definite date planned and no true promise to fulfill. For I had no intentions on keeping a date or a promise to Clarkie. The only date and promise I intended on keeping was with my service revolver that very night.  
I had reached the end, as far as I was concerned. I could no longer live the way I was living and life did not appeal to me anymore. I could not live in a world devoid of Holmes and Mary and I had reached my conclusion at long last. The military man in myself balked at the idea of taking the "coward's" way out, but the MAN in me felt too aggrieved, too broken to continue on. I had taken as much as any man could before the breaking point. I had simply reached the breaking point at last.  
Tonight, John Hamish Watson would cease to exist and it would be on my terms. I would not wait for life to take me, I would take my life.

"There's no relief  
I see you in my sleep  
And everybody's rushing me  
But I can feel you touching me  
There's no release  
I feel you in my dreams  
Telling me I'm fine

Every time I close my eyes  
It's like a dark paradise  
No one compares to you  
I'm scared that you  
Won't be waiting on the other side  
Every time I close my eyes  
It's like a dark paradise  
No one compares to you  
But there's no you  
Except in my dreams tonight..."

I entered my place of residence in Kensington, looking over everything and thinking about how Mary and I had planned to build a life here, perhaps have a family. I stopped by the dining room and thought of how I had dreamed of dinners with my wife and dearest friend, of laughter and smiles and happiness. I had planned so many wonderful memories in this house, only to have them crushed within three years. Leaving here would not hurt me so much, it held far too many terrible memories.  
I walked into my study and sat by my desk, looking at the drawer were my service revolver sat locked away. I had no intentions of ending my life so soon in the day, for I wanted my housekeeper to have gone home for the night. I did not want to subject her to the gunshot and she was never the first in the house in the morning. My assistant, David Baxter, was usually first in to check the register for patients for the day. It would be better for him to find me than for the housekeeper.  
I had barely been at my desk five minutes when the woman in question informed me that I had a visitor. To my great surprise, it was none other than my strange, old book collector, his sharp, wizened face peering out from a frame of white hair, and his precious volumes wedged under his right arm.  
"You're surprised to see me, sir," he said in his strange, croaking voice.  
"I am a bit," I acknowledged, motioning for him to come closer.  
"Well, I've a conscience, sir, and when I chanced to see you go into this house, I thought to myself I'll just step in and see that kind gentleman, and tell him that if I was a bit gruff in my manner there was not any harm meant, and that I am much obliged to him for picking up my books."  
I found myself feeling a little moved by the man's kindness, but also felt it was unwarranted. "You make too much of a trifle. Any good Christian would have done the same."  
"Begging your pardon, sir, but there is many a Christian who would have turned away from this old man," he replied, giving me a very toothy smile.  
I knew what he said was very true, and so I changed subjects. "May I ask how you knew who I was?" I was indeed curious by this as I had never seen the man before today.  
"Well, sir, if isn't too great a liberty, I am a neighbour of yours, for you'll find my little bookshop at the corner of Church Street, and very happy to see you, I am sure. Maybe you collect yourself, sir. Here's British Birds, and Catullus, and The Holy War- a bargain, every one of them. With five volumes, you could just fill that gap on the second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not, sir?"  
I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my desk. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it would seem that I must have fainted for the first and last time in my life. A gray mist swirled before my eyes and when it cleared, I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling aftertaste of brandy upon my lips. Holmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his hand.  
"My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea you would be so affected."  
I gripped him by the arms. "Holmes! Is it really you?! How could you have survived that terrible fall into Reichenbach?! No, wait...! Say nothing. I only wish one thing right now..."  
And I embraced him tightly, pulling him to my chest. After a moment, he wrapped his sinewy arms around my waist, leaning into me. All of the familiar scents that I remembered from the past enveloped me and I felt home at last. My heart ached with joy and an intense love.  
"If this is a dream, I never want to wake from it," I murmured softly, burying my face in his hair.  
"It's no dream, Watson. I'm here and I plan to stay with you," he replied, his breath warm against my neck.  
That spring day in 1894, when I had though my life was over, I found it again. I held Sherlock Holmes in my arms and vowed to not wast this time with him. I had already lived what felt like an eternity without him and knew what I became without him at my side. I would regret nothing ever again.

"Oh-oh-oh-oh, ah-ha-ha-ha  
I don't want to wake up from this tonight  
Oh-oh-oh-oh, ah-ha-ha-ha  
I don't want to wake up from this tonight..."

J. H. Watson  
February, 1895X


End file.
